> every time people cite work they are looking at it.
Not in physics. Most physicists cite without reading original sources. This is a real problem. The citations standards in physics is really low. There was a research about this but I cannot find it now. It was about the corruption in the title of one of Einstein's most cited papers. Like generations of photocopying corrupts the original, physicists copied the citation from other citations without bothering to check the original and the title became something else. It was funny.